Peel the Freckles from Our Shoulders
by anempiregame
Summary: A series of unrelated Ernst and Hanschen drabbles written along with various songs. Also known as the shuffle song drabble challenge.


A/N- These are the first five song inspired drabbles in a set of ten. They're all fundamentally Ernst/Hanschen pieces though one or more may tend to focus more on one boy than the other or their relationship. The other five I will create a separate chapter for once I finish them, that is. The title is a line out of Death Cab for Cutie's Summer Skin.

I'm always thankful for CC and general comments and feedback.

**Disclaimer: I do not and have never claimed to own these characters. They are the property of their creators and so on and so forth.**

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><p><em><strong>If I Fell- Across the Universe soundtrack (The Beatles cover)<strong>_

_I found that love was more than just holding hands._

Fingers roughly shove their way into his hair and short, clipped nails scrape against his scalp and a mouth finds his in a bruising kiss. Teeth clack against his and he's sure he tastes blood and is it his own or Hanschen's? The headboard of his childhood bed presses against his back. His shoulders and spine will ache when this is over with the pain of passion and guilt. Hanschen's weight is pressing down on him and there's only a small pocket of air and time and space between them now and there's no time to pull back so he does what he can and reaches around Hanschen and aligns his smaller frame flush to the larger one above him and let's himself go.

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><p><strong>I've Been Eating (for you)- Bright Eyes<strong>

_And it isn't exceptional, the course of our fate. So, people love and they hate._

Your voice is colder than you think he's ever heard it before. He reaches for you and you wrench yourself out of his careful and calculated action. You stand stiffly, arms at your side. He opens his mouth and you don't want to hear what he has to say for fear that his spell will wash over you again and you'll forgive him and believe that it was just another liquor fuelled mistake done over. You sway, suddenly overcome with the realization that he's touched others like he's touched you. That he's whispered pleas and promises and lies into their ears and they listened and believed or let the words shatter on the floor, uncaring. You're dizzy and your face is awash with heat. The bile rises and your throat and you swallow hard."I can't… I can't do this," You mumble and turn to the door. He says your name and it sounds unsure and small and wrong on his tongue. You shut your eyes and turn the knob, sturdy brass in your hand. You shut the door behind you and lean heavily against it. The nausea has past but the heavy weight of disappointment remains in your chest.

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><p><strong>If You Can't Sleep- She and Him<strong>

_Shut your eyes, there are bluer skies for you embrace to my heart._

Ernst turns in Hanschen's arms, head against his shoulder and a kiss is pressed to the top of his head. The summer warm breeze sends the grass against their skin and softly shakes the leaves above their heads. Ernst draws his knees up and curls against Hanschen's side, arms folded under his head and resting against Hanschen's chest. Something stirs and catches in Hanschen's chest and he begins to speak, eyes heavy with peace, quiet words about far off farm houses and fields of yellow flowers, train rides that clack into a distance where no one knows them and even of a colony that isn't as far but may be safe, for a while anyhow. The words lull Ernst into a peaceful slumber, his breath a warm, steady puff against Hanschen's neck and for a moment even he believes in an impossible tomorrow.

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><p><strong>A Beautiful Mine (Mad Men soundtrack)<strong>

_Instrumental and based completely off the title instead of the song. I apologize for that._

I lean against Hanschen's chest and tap my fingers lightly against his knee. He lets out a sigh that's nothing more than a puff of breath and I smile as it's lost in my hair. I stop tapping and begin to trace patterns and nonsensical shapes against the fabric instead. His breath is warm and soft against my ear when he asks me what I am doing. _I don't know_, I reply, _just being with you_. His gentle laugh vibrates through his chest and I smile at the feeling of it, of knowing I can make him pleased enough to laugh or smile when he so rarely does it. He traces his fingers up my wrist and encircles it, calls me a sentimentalist but I can hear the fondness in his voice. I tip my head up as he leans down and our mouths meet in a kiss. He tastes of dry toast and tea and something that's familiar and yet still strange and unknown. He is a constant surprise. He is still the Hanschen I grew up with, the Hanschen who will only offer a smirk and a snide comment and toss his head at any form of insult and yet beneath that there is another Hanschen. There is my Hansi, who is content to cloud watch with me and make pilgrimages to the edge of the woods we played in as children to smuggle Ilse whatever we can and with him I am at peace.

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><p><strong>Welcome Home, Son- Radical Face<strong>

_Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline, like a row of captured ghosts over old dead grass, was never much but we made the most._

There is a hill that overlooks our town, as children we would play for hours atop it. It was our castle, our pirate ship and cove, an ocean of monsters and myth. As we grew older and up we fell it became a place of solitude. One could make the trip up to think or to roll a cigarette in peace. I found it to be a spot Ernst frequently visited. He would come early in the morning with his book of sketching paper bound together by a thin, blue ribbon his sister had given up and draw the town and the people he met within it, maps of places he would never know and things the rest of us never stop to see. Within third month of our relationship I had tried to purchase him a real sketching book. He took it as a crueler form of my usual teasing, as if he was a charity case and with cold eyes turned away from me and crossed the school yard, his back tall and thin. When I set for home alone that day and thought of how I missed his light steps and chatter next to me, I knew I had betrayed my own best interests and fallen for him and upon his forgiveness the hill became one of our spots in turn. We spend most of our spare time here, way up high, as he sketches and I read or when he'll allow it, watch. I tangle my fingers with his free hand as I listen to the scratching of charcoal against page. There is a smudge on his cheek and his forefinger is gray with the mess. The tightness in my chest at his presence I have grown used to and perhaps like the hill or the vineyard he has became a home in his own right.


End file.
